AnonymousCoworker

I’m swamped with homework and workwork, but I decided to go back to what I know before disappearing for a few days: eggnog!

I’m covering two nogs at once here, in a sort of compare and contrast type of way, because they’re very similar, but have differences that should be pointed out.

First, Southern Comfort Vanilla Spice Eggnog, henceforth referred to as rednog, because it comes in a red box, and it’s made by communists.

Rednog is one of the more distinct nogs that I’ve tasted this year, though anyone with an untrained palette probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway, so I’ll give some background.

The nogs that SoCo uses are harvested from a nog farm located on the north side of a valley that faces south by southeast as the crow flies. The young nogs are fed a daily diet of grain, nuts, and hippies, and before long they’re fully grown. At this point, the nogs could be harvested, but generally provide a bitter sub-par taste until they’ve engaged in the mating ritual with another nog. Nogs are asexual, so they have no problem coupling-up and humping like wild monkeys with whomever across they first stumble. The nogs will all run up into the hills on their fat little legs and each claim a hill. They will begin running counter-clockwise around the top of this hill. Slower nogs who reach hills that are already occupied have two options: they can run off to find a hill of their own, or they can stay and run clockwise around the same hill. Depending on a variety of factors, some of which include wind speed, terminal velocity, and unadulterated dumb luck, the lucky nogs will eventually run into one another on the hill, lock in coitus, and roll down the hill back towards the nog ranch.

As two more nogs take the summit of the hill, the first two nogs are allowed to finish, their nutmeg is collected, (interesting aside, the frothy byproduct that sometimes results from nog congress is, once dried, the primary ingredient in nutmeg! Bet you didn’t know that.) and they are separated and squeegeed of their delicious nog flavoring. This flavoring is so concentrated that it can only be used as a food additive. However, it’s frequently used improperly, resulting in horrible Frankenstein-esque abortions of nog products that are “nog” in name only. Finally, the sexually satisfied and recently squeegeed nogs will have their heads and legs chopped off, their bodies (bones, intestines, and all) ground into a thick slurry, mixed with some preservatives, and then pumped into cardboard cartons to be sold in stores.

This isn’t how all nogs are made, and in fact, each farm has its own methods. However, SoCo’s farm is the only one that doesn’t have a secret process, so it’s the only one where I know all the details. There are rumors that cannog isn’t made from nog at all, but is instead made from the liquid wrung from old mops that were previously used in a dirty diaper factory, but I can’t substantiate those rumors.

Regardless of all this, rednog has the distinct flavor of sugar cookies and I would highly recommend it to those who are a little turned off by the flavor of a traditional nog.

Southern Comfort Traditional nog, henceforth referred to as blacknog, because it’s made in the dark by ninjas, tastes just like it sounds: traditional.

Blacknog has a taste very different from rednog, in that the vanilla cookie-type flavor is not present at all, and the nutmeg flavor is much stronger. Nogs on the blacknog farm are forced to copulate in order to produce enough of the foamy, frothy mixture needed to properly season the nog. Blacknog is recommended for those who like their nog like they like their once-fortnightly Saturday-evening sex half-hour: comfortable and non-threatening. But be warned; SoCo nogs are the most expensive nogs on the market, probably due to the care with which they treat their nogs before mercilessly slaughtering them.

After trying these two nogs I felt I would be remiss to not try them with Southern Comfort, but I didn’t have any Southern Comfort laying around, so I had to improvise. First I poured a glass of nog:

Then I added some booze in the form of Miller Lite:

I stirred it once and drank. It was awesome! My hypotheis was that nothing would make a shitty beer better than a delicious nog, and damn was I validated like a sonofabitch. And bacon makes everything better, so next time I think I’m going to garnish the whole beernog shebang with a piece of hickory smoked bacon. Mmm mmm that’s a tasty heart attack.